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O’Connor was one of the justices with a reputation for supporting governmental power to take property under eminent domain. But her dissenting opinion made clear that the Kelo decision would go down in history as a breathtaking expansion of the power of eminent domain. “The specter of condemnation hangs over all property,” the dissent continued. “Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall or any farm with a factory.”

Her dissent was right out of the institute’s brief. Bullock shook his head in disbelief. How could the five majority justices possibly vote for a decision that stood for taking a Motel 6 through eminent domain to replace it with a Ritz-Carlton?

Depressed, Bullock telephoned Susette at her home.

“Susette?”

“Yes.”

We lost. The decision was 5–4.”

Clutching the phone, Susette went silent. Her lips started quivering, and a tear worked its way down her face.

“I’m sorry, Susette,” Bullock said, “really sorry.”

Without saying a word, she put down the receiver and walked out to her front porch. What would she do now? Moving into the house in Old Lyme was not an option. The work required to remodel the place was much more extensive than she had anticipated when she had purchased the house. And although her sons had offered free labor, Susette couldn’t afford the building materials. It could be a year or two before the house was habitable.

The sea breeze caused her thirteen-star American flag, which was mounted to the front of the house, to flutter effortlessly. It was the kind of summer day that people in coastal New England live for. Sunlight and perfect blue sky blanketed the neighborhood.

Now her view and the neighborhood were going to disappear. She had consumed eight years of her life trying to hold on to her home. In the final analysis, five strangers in black robes had taken it away—five people who lived in the kinds of neighborhoods where eminent domain would never be a threat.

Anger suddenly overtook her sadness. She had gone to America’s ultimate source of justice and found none. Instead, she had been insulted. The city had the power to take her home, and she was powerless to stop it. But if the city thought she was giving up, it was sadly mistaken. “I know you won, you assholes,” she said. “Now come get us out.”

If the courts wouldn’t help her, she decided, she’d just take matters into her own hands. She went back inside and called Bullock back.

“If the city wants my home, they are going to have to drag me outta here,” she told him.

She headed up the street to find Von Winkle and Matt Dery. Folks were starting to gather at Dery’s house. None of them could believe the Court’s decision. And none of them planned on going anywhere.

Dery insisted they had to find out their legal options. His eighty-seven-year-old mother, Wilhelmina, could not bear the thought of moving out. She had waited eight long years for someone to save her and her family from having to abandon the only home she had ever known. “We may have lost,” Dery said. “But now come get us. Try.”

Susette insisted she’d press Bullock to come up with a plan.

Von Winkle left to talk to a reporter out on the street. He compared the Supreme Court’s decision to getting blindsided in a fight. “A crazy left hook out of nowhere,” he said. “It was a hard blow, but it was no knockout. This is the third round of a fifteen-round bout. We’re coming out swinging next round. We’re not leaving, not by a long shot.”

When Susette got back to her house, she already had voice mails from people from other parts of the country expressing sympathy, support, and fury. A woman from the South thanked her for her courage. Another woman assured her that the nation was behind her.

The calls kept coming from different area codes and time zones. “Ms. Kelo,” one caller from Texas said, “it appears that we have something here in Texas that you folks in New London haven’t heard of yet. It’s called lock-and-load.